How to Fish for Knucklehead Trout

Yenrak

Explorer
Do any of the Forgotten Realms books detail the techniques used to fish for Knucklehead Trout in Icewind Dale?

Is it predominately hook and line fishing? Or trawling with nets?

The characters in a game I DM are headed up to Icewind Dale and I'm curious what equipment they'd find in use for the fishing.
 

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For what it's worth, in the Icewind Dale videogame the fishing village you start in uses boats and nets for fishing.
 

Thanks. I think it would make the most sense if the fishing is done with nets. Individual fishing lines with individual hooks is mostly a sports angler thing, it seems to me. Not something you would do at an industrial level that the Ten Towners fish at to support their economy.

If my players get serious about fishing, I may try to make up some rules to cover it. There would obviously be some sort of net-fishing proficiency, maybe specific to Knucklehead Trout. And fishing would require some sort of ability check. Maybe a strength check--but most fishing equipment is designed to displace strength with other stuff. Dexerity? That sounds closer but, again, not quite right. Fly-fishing might be more dexterity.

Animal Handling is a Wisdom check. So is insight and perception. I think fishing is a wisdom check.
 


I'm assuming that you do not mean commercial fishing but recreational/survival fishing.

Assuming that these are similar to real-world trout, you could look at how trout has been fished throughout history in the real world.

Stone-age peoples or survival fishing in shallow waters could include:

(1) using net-like construtions (weirs) made from tied/woven reeds, stretched across an area of a stream, high enough to stick above the water, anchored to the sand using poles (you can see a video of what this looks like here: http://www.intothewildwest.com/native-americans-traditional-fishing-techniques/)

(2) spear fishing (either from shore, standing in wather, or by canoe; also spear fishing at night with torches)

(3) bone or wooden hooks and string using whatever bait known to be effective

With medieval levels of technology you would have more effective barbed metal hooks and you would see angling not disimilar to fishing today with a cane pole. Lines would likely be made of nettle. Hooks would be iron. Sinkers would be small bits of flat stone with a hole drilled through them for the line to pass through. A "commercial" version at the ocean would be "long lining", where you have a long line stretched across a river between to poles with a number shorter lines hanging down with hooks set up near the shore. When the tide goes out, you would go and collect the hooked fish. A similar method could be done by boat using floats on one end and the other end tied to the book and then you would just pull in the line every now and then to get the fish (link to an illustration of long lining).

In medieval times you would also have more sophisticated fish nets and fish traps (see proceeding link for pictures). Spear fishing was also practices in medieval europe, using barbed metal spear tips and tridents.

Fly fishing is another possibility and a method that adventurer could use. Fly fishing is recorded as far back as roman times (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_fishing)

For fantasy worlds some other options spring to mind:

* trained bears, bear companions, or druids wild shaped into bears could slap out fish from streams at especially shallow areas - OR - instead of bears, otters. See video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaGrOqDKhdE

* dancing lights would be very helpful with night fishing and could perhaps grant a bonus or advantage or be treated as a helping action. Faerie Fire would be similarly useful. Other spells useful to help with fishing: charm animal, locate animals or plants, call lightning, and other lightning spells)
 

I believe it talks about it in the Legacy of the Crystal Shard campaign guide. I’m on my way to work, but IIRC it makes it sound like knucklehead trout are huge and they are indeed mostly fished by line rather than net. Like catching marlin.

Also, if there are fleets of boats catching the fish with nets, I struggle to see how it would be sustainable. The lakes aren’t that big really.
 

I seem to recall that Streams of Silver opens with a scene where Regis the halfling is fishing for knucklehead trout with a line and rod.
 

I imagine there could be both: line fishing and net fishing. Maybe competing techniques from different fishing companies or towns. Sailboats on the lakes could probably move quite quickly--the place is called IceWIND Dale--which would enable trawling with longlines.

Net fishing in medieval times was nothing like we imagine it today and it wouldn't have depleted lakes the way modern technology facilitates overfishing. There was lots and lots of "industrial" net fishing. Think of episodes in the Bible, for example. But the nets were handheld or handpulled. And fish were much more abundant in most big bodies of water than they are today.
 

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